Oxford and class prejudice.

 

Bodleian Library Oxford

I was member of the Bodleian library in Oxford in the early 1980s. I think we had to swear or give an undertaking that we wouldn't start fires within the precincts or within the vicinity of the library. The building is very impressive and huge but I didn't find the library very accessible or the staff very helpful or friendly. It isn't easy to use.

One particular day, I heard a fellow student, tell his history tutor that he'd stopped going in the Bodleian Library. When the tutor asked him why, he told him that he always felt humiliated because some staff members belittled him because of his Brum accent. I heard the tutor say to him, "Let me give you some advice young man. The next time you go in the Bodleian Library, walk in as though you own the place. These people can smell fear." I fell about laughing when I heard this but I thought it was extremely sound advice.

They do have a thing about social class and accents at Oxford, it's quite extraordinary and pathetic. An American would be far more at home at Oxford than somebody with a provincial English accent. Yet, Derek Robinson who taught economics at Magdalen College, Oxford, was a Yorkshire lad from Barnsley. This son of a miner, seems to have had no difficulty fitting in to college life. A colleague once told him that he'd observed how Derek's Yorkshire accent had become more pronounced and stronger the longer he'd been at Oxford. Robinson told him that you had to define your own territory in this life. I think he was absolutely right.

The English Marxist, philosopher, literary theorist and critic, Terry Eagleton, taught at Oxford University for many years. Having been born in Salford doesn't seem to have been a barrier to Eagleton either socially or academically. I believe Eagleton's lectures at Oxford were very popular and so we're the lectures of the historian, A J.P. Taylor, who was born in Southport.

All his life, Taylor liked to be controversial and he attributed his failure to win a Balliol scholarship to the examiners' prejudice against a candidate with "no manners and a rough Lancashire accent." He refused to accept that he'd caused offence during the interview, when he'd been asked what a "radical of his persuasion would like to see happen to Oxford", he replied "blow it up." It sounds like a good answer to me. I think John Ruskin held similar sentiments.

'Migrant hotel king' raked in £90m last year from housing migrants & asylum seekers.

 

'Migrant Hotel King' - Graham King 

A former caravan park owner and disco tycoon from Canvey Island, Essex, made over £90m last year from lucrative Home Office government contracts, housing asylum seekers.

Graham King of Clear Springs Ready Homes, who houses migrants in hotels, unused military barracks and flats, is on course to become the first immigration industry billionaire. According to The Times, a company report shows that it made a profit of £91.2 million last year and paid £90 million in dividends to a company controlled by King, "mainly to the provision of accommodation, support and transport to asylum seekers."

King who is estimated to have a personal net worth of £750 million was catapulted onto Britain's rich list, after cashing in on the flood of recent migrant arrivals into Britain. Clear Springs had an income increase of £400 million in just 12 months. The 57-year-old, "migrant hotel king", and slum landlord, was ranked as the 173rd richest person in Britain in the Sunday Times Rich List for 2024. The British taxpayer is paying King £8 million per day to house asylum seekers.

In 2021, two of Clear Springs sites in Wales and Kent, were described has being 'decrepit, 'impoverished' and 'run-down'. Inspectors described one of the sites, Penally Camp in Wales, as 'decrepit' and filthy. Inspectors claimed that around a third of the residents who were consulted claimed to have mental health issues and declared there had been "fundamental failures of leadership and planning." In 2023, 70 people, including children, slept outside two Clear Springs-run hotels in the capital after claiming they had been put in small rooms without enough beds.

Having made a fortune out of the British taxpayer who are paying to accommodate asylum seekers, Graham King has been able to fund his family's "globe-trotting holidays and Alpine ski trips." He's been able to privately educate his son and daughter at a "£44,000-a-year boarding school." King's daughter, Catalina, who is studying to be an artist, is selling £10 prints which bear the slogan, "Will trade racists for refugees

Angela Rayner declares £3,550 in free clothing from Lord Alli.

 

I can't quite make my mind up whether Lord Waheed Alli is Labour's ATM machine, its fairy godmother, or he's running a benevolent society for Labour big wigs.

Not long ago, it was revealed that Angela Rayner and her swain and 'soulmate', Sam Tarry, had stayed five nights free of charge at Lord Alli's £2m apartment in Manhattan. It has now been revealed that in June, Angie accepted free clothing from Lord Alli amounting to £3,550.

Many people might wonder why Lord Alli is so generous with his money and why he buys so many gifts for Labour politicians. It stands to reason that you don't become rich by giving your money away.

Some people might think that Angie treats Lord Alli like a sugar daddy or milch cow, but she's  said that Lord Alli never asks for anything nor does he get anything in return for his generosity.

Both Angela Rayner and Rachel 'Freeze' Reeves, have registered these free clothing donations as "office support." In September, the prime minister, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves, said they would no longer accept free clothing donations.